Understanding Special and Non-Special Characters for SMS Campaigns

Quick Takeaways

• The type of characters you use in SMS marketing affects reach and cost.
• This post explains special vs non-special characters, their impact, and best practices.
• SMS marketing is powerful because of high open rates and immediate impact.

SMS marketing remains a powerful tool for engaging customers. Understanding character encoding ensures messages are delivered as intended and within budget.

Non-special characters (GSM-7)

• Non-special characters are standard text characters.
• GSM-7 encoding includes common punctuation marks (e.g., period, comma, exclamation point).
• GSM-7 allows up to 160 characters in a single SMS message. This is efficient and cost-effective for standard messages.

Special characters (UCS-2)

• Special characters fall outside the GSM-7 set and typically require UCS-2 encoding.
• Examples: characters from non-Latin alphabets (e.g., Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic) and specific punctuation not in GSM-7 (e.g., curly quotes, non-breaking spaces).
• UCS-2 reduces the character limit to 70 characters per SMS. This can increase the number of SMS segments required and raise campaign costs.

Special characters can cause display issues on some devices if not supported. This can hurt user experience and reduce engagement.

For example, a 160-character message using only GSM-7 characters is sent as one SMS. The same message with special characters might be split into three SMS segments, increasing costs.

Best practices

• Know your audience. Understand language preferences. If messages need special characters, plan for them.
• Test messages on various devices. Confirm characters display correctly and the message length is acceptable.
• Use emojis sparingly. They add personality but can trigger segmentation.
• Optimize for length. Keep messages concise. Use abbreviations and common acronyms where appropriate.
• Monitor costs. Be aware of the cost impact when special characters are used.
• Provide value. Make each message useful with offers, updates, or personalization. This helps justify extra segments when needed.

Understanding the difference between unique and non-special characters in SMS campaigns is crucial for communication and cost management. Marketers can optimize campaigns by following best practices and watching character usage.

You may download the symbols document for SMS here.

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